Assessing the air salinity on agro-physiological response of Brassica oleracea var. capitata and Brassica oleracea var. botrytis

Air salinity is one of the problems for horticulture production in coastal areas. Cabbage and Cauliflower are horticulture commodities that have the potential to develop in coastal areas. The present study aimed to examine the agro-physiological response of cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) and cauliflower (B. oleracea var. botrytis) to different concentrations of air salinity. This research was a factorial experiment on polybags arranged according to a completely randomized block design with two factors. The first factor was the crop type, namely cabbage (Grand 22) and cauliflower (Larissa F1). The second factor was the concentration of air salinity, namely 0 dS. m-1, 6 dS. m-1, 12 dS. m-1, and 18 dS. m-1. The agro-physiological changes studied were crop yield, leaf chlorophyll content, stomata density, and proline content. A stress tolerance index was measured to determine the level of crop resistance to air salinity stress. The results explained that air salinity was not able to affect crop growth and yield, but it enabled to affect crops physiologically. The highest decrease in leaf chlorophyll content was at 18 dS. m-1 of 29.16% in the vegetative stage and 37.88% in the generative stage. There was an increase in proline accumulation of leaf (1,320.63%) when the air salinity was increased (18 dS. m-1). However, the accumulation of cabbage proline was lower than that of cauliflower. Based on the stress tolerance index, cabbage is included in the category of tolerant, while cauliflower is in the category of moderate tolerance to air salinity.